39 Beginnings and Endings

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"BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS!"


Our combined texts today speak of endings and beginnings, of
judgement and joy. Our first passage from Isaiah 65 shows a wonderful
ending for the people of God. (We hope that's us!) In the second text,
Jesus tells the disciples all of the things they will have to go through - the
destruction of Jerusalem, families turning against them, authorities calling
them to come before them - not a great future to look forward to - yet
Jesus says to them, "None of these things can really harm you! Easy
for Him to say - you say! Not really. He suffered more than anyone - the
most agonizing death imaginable - but He's alive and well and living any
where in the world He wants - including in your heart and mine. Death
could not contain him or swallow him up. He assures us that nothing can
harm us if we continue strong in our faith while we're going through the
dark times. By your endurance you will gain your souls. (Luke 21:19)
our text for the day.
Are you in a time of beginning or ending? The fact is, you are
always experiencing both BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS.
I always get amused at myself at vacation time. I can't wait to get
away, and yet the time comes when I can't wait to get home! Both
beginnings and endings are good - we just LIKE one more than the other!
We don't like endings, yet some things must come to an end in
order that other things may start. In a very real sense we have many lifetimes
in one. Life consists of many journeys - that begin and end - and wisdom
is understanding the journey process which enables you to deal with all
that comes.
Have faith when something is in its beginning stages in your life or
the life of the world.
Have awareness when things are really going well for you,
stopping to savor the experience, and pausing - daily - to give God thanks
for this part of the journey, and to
Have strength when the going get tough - strength
that comes from knowing that all storms have BEGINNINGS AND
ENDINGS that BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS make up the fabric
of our very existence - rise and fall, ying and yang, slow and stop, begin
and speed up; have and have not. Let us review these three "haves."
Have faith when something is in its beginning stages in your
life or the life of the world:
I'm convinced that the world is at a turning point where what it
decides to do will determine whether it will even survive or not. As a
nation, we searched and searched for weapons of mass destruction where
there were none. We should have looked at home. And everywhere
else we look, we see nations trying to weapons of mass destruction - as if
they were something wonderful to have! That's because we in the world
have been taught by everyone (but Jesus) that having them will give us
security. Domination, we are told is how we get security. But others will
want to dominate - and there will always be wars to decide who's the
most dominate! It makes no practical sense.
What makes sense is that our security depends on the well-being
of everyone on the planet, and working on that well being is what we
should, as Christians, be about. The more caring we are about others'
well being the more secure we will become! Our job is drying up the
cesspools of desperation by our acts of generosity and concern for others
- the Jesus way.
There is a new network of spiritual progressives that feel this way
- would that people in all religions were to agree and to live accordingly.
And we have to have the belief that persons of faith reaching out in concern
can make a difference. What we as Americans have done with our
domination strategy is to increase persons hatred of us, playing directly
into the hands of the terrorists who then become more terrible - because
we have fueled their cause. How's that workin' for us. It's not! But how
are things going in YOUR life?
We need to talk about the times we're halfway between the
beginning and the end - when things are going well.
Have awareness when things are really going well for you,
stopping to savor the experience - and giving God thanks.
It is said that "an unexamined life is not worth living." That's true..
But I am concerned about how we forget to stop and savor where we are
now. I am concerned with how we focus instead on where we have been
or where we're going. THE thing that God wants more from us than
anything else is THANKS, and I am glad that it is THANKSGIVING
SUNDAY when I'm saying it. We need to sip and savor. Instead we
gulp down and go by that which should be riveting our attention - the
things for which we should be expressing gratitude.
Or when things are going well, some of us seem to be waiting for
the other shoe to drop - as if somehow we don't deserve calm waters.
On my cruise I got accustomed to calm waters - except one day! The
same day the tanker split apart off the Russian coast, our ship was hit with
high winds and rough seas. I had discovered that there were lots of
accessible Kawai grands on the ship and was playing one of them - just
for the fun of it when one gigantic wave hit the ship. There was a loud
crack. Is the ship breaking in two I wondered? It was the first time I was
ever afraid on board a cruise ship. Soon there was the voice of the captain
telling us that although it was rough and some of us would not be at dinner,
there was nothing to worry about - that in a few hours we would be out of
the storm. So I found another Kawai grand piano with people around it
and played soothing music - skillfully avoiding "Amazing Grace" - the
theme song of the Titanic - what the band was playing when the ship went
down. I was concerned about the well being of my fellow passengers.
More than anything else we need everyone in the world to be
concerned about everyone else in the world - recognizing that we
are all fellow passengers on the same space ship - where we will all
survive or not survive - together.
This is how God will accomplish His dream as outlined in Isaiah:
"I am creating a new heaven and a new earth. The troubled of the
past will be forgotten. No one will remember them. My people will
be happy and rejoice forever and ever because of what I will make."
Just remember, he will make it by using us to help. He will use
those who commit themselves to a new way of thinking and being - who
believe that what we think and do can make a difference - that we cannot
establish peace with bombs and barricades, but only with generosity and
concern for our fellow travelers on the journey, opening doors of
diplomacy, building relationships, tearing down the walls between us. That
will be a tough one, but Jesus is the one who calls us to do it, not by
forcing His religion or ours on anyone, but by becoming the epitome of
love and peace in our actions. Thus will God create His dream.
Although he could have phrased it more interestingly, the theologian,
John Calvin had it right: "It were cold and lifeless to represent God
as a momentary Creator, who completed his work once and for all,
and then left it. Here, especially, we must dissent from the profane,
and maintain that the presence of the divine power is conspicuous,
not less in the perpetual condition of the world than in its first
creation...After learning that there is a Creator, it must forthwith
infer that he is also a "governor" and "preserver" and that, not
by producing a kind of general motion in the machine of the globe
as well as in each of its parts, but by a special "providence"
sustaining, cherishing, superintending, all the things which he has
made to the very minutest, even to a sparrow. (Institute of Christian
Religion)
To put it in United Church of Christ language, God is still speaking,
teaching us new truth that may conflict with teachings of old, even as Jesus
said, "It HAS been said to you - thus and so, but I say to you, and
then he would tell us something new....even as God the Father is
asking us to see the new thing He is going to do - right now on the
Thanksgiving and Stewardship Sunday - through your committment
to what God can accomplish in this place.
I know from experience that when God get's busy, so do we.
We are the means by which His Will is accomplished in the world, no
matter how difficult the task or the storm we or the world might be going
through at any given time.
Have strength when the going gets tough.
I can't say that a young student I read about had a great deal of
strength when the going got tough for him.....He had planned his whole
future around getting accepted in a particular school of architecture. When
that didn't happen, he called the Dean of the school he was then attending
to say "My life has been destroyed!" The Dean thought otherwise.
He thought it was time for him to make other plans. As it worked out, he
did not study architecture anywhere. He went into the field of industrial
design. Today, he is one of the nation's great designers, having designed
many objects that grace your home.
His life was "destroyed", but he had the strength to see that God
was simply shifting things around in his life. Consider this possibility: "God
is going to shift things around for you today so that things will
work in your favor!"
Do you have the maturity when everything shifts to look for how
God is making things happen in your favor? I hope so. I pray so.
No matter where you are in your life's journey, Have faith.
Practice awareness and most of all, give God thanks. Now Thank We
All Our God!


Sermon Notes(Not edited nor proofed)The Rev. Dr. Garth R. Thompson Pastor, M.B. Community ChurchA sermon is a simple truth told by someone whobelieves it to people he knows and loves (Phillips Brooks)November 18, 2007 10:30 a, m. Isaiah 65:17-25 Luke 21:5-19

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our heartsbe acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer.